RunsWithLegos wrote:looks a little unsteady, how does it do on it's own?

They're not too bad once they're adjusted properly, but they do have smaller feet than other Bionicles so I might have a bit of an experiment and try out some larger feet on them. The twin boilers do add enough extra weight to make them tippy if they're not set up properly on their feet.

I started doing some work on walkers for the British Expeditionary Guard and I thought I'd try a different type of Steam powered walker. I didn't want to build another 'boiler up the back and seated driver' type again even though those are good-looking walkers. After stirring my imagination around a bit I had the thought that the British might be trying out something a bit more special in the way of a walking construct. Something with the boiler enclosed and more of the 'works' on display. And what about having a Babbage Galvanic Calculating Engine running the whole thing so it was a semi-autonomous construct. Not sentient mind you, just able to follow basic routines and take instruction by morse code or something of the sort, All of which means somebody has to be withing range and keeping an eye on the thing (I shall work on this idea a bit more.......).

i like the new style. i think the idea of morse code for the controls in interesting as well. although, i could see the morse code bit going horribly wrong when someone accidentally replaces a dot with a dash, or vice versa. instead of clearing a road block, it could clear someone's scalp, or something as such. either way, would make for an entretaining epic fail i guess.

hhmmm.... I don't really like this new direction, it seems a bit too much like actual bionicle for me. with the chinese walkers, it was varied enough that it didn't matter that you were using bionicle, but this now just looks like you put gears and a boiler on the back of one. what would work, IMO, is if you took off the head for this one and replace it with a pilot/driver and windshield. then it wouldn't be as hunched as the chinese ones and would still be a different style

It's highly likely that I'm going to change the head for something that's definitely non-Bionicle to make this walker more steampunkish. I would still like to stay with the semi-autonomous angle using morse code to control it though. This would give me a certain amount of randomness to the operation of what is a fairly powerful close combat armoured walker. Dice rolls to see if the message was received (1= no go) and then to see if the message is correctly understood (1= moves off in random direction).
Basically in operation the other British scout walker I built earlier would follow on behind this walker and the driver would have it under his control. I've since armed this one man scout walker with a Grimthype Patent Heat Ray Cannon so it now has the ability to defend itself, - though hopefully not against the semi-autonomous walker should it go rogue

It's been raining cults and dogs here so I've been doing a little messing about with Lego. I built a representation of the Babbage Galvanic Calculating Engine headpiece for the Armstrong-Vickers semi-autonomous combat walker. When I get some more tile pieces and other bits I'll most probably replace the Russian clone armour pieces which should reduce the Bionicle look quite a bit.

With regard to colours I've settled on using White and Grey for the Chinese machines and Red, Blue, Grey and occassionally Dark Green for British machines.
I've still got to make up my mind about the French, White Russian and US machines.

Privateer machines like 'Dinosaur Hunter' can be any colour their owners like.

I wanted a two man crewed heavy walker for my Brits that could mount a sizeable gun so I decided to approach the design from a completely different direction. Not exactly a super tank or a Hatred Tank, but I think my Brits will like it.

There's a type of heat engine called a 'flame-gulper' and I've always liked them. As a type they don't have the power to pull the skin off rice pudding, but in my Steampunk universe the engineers have cracked it.

Silverdream wrote:Nice walking fort. Though I would make the top a bit bigger to hold more rifleman.

I was having problems with a slight brick shortage, but once I get further supplies I'll open out the command deck a bit more so I can increase the crew numbers and have a couple more riflemen/gunners.